EAPS ARDEC is a new droning platform

The American army was one of the first to deploy drones that perform reconnaissance missions and carry out offensive missions by eliminating their targets. Now the army has shown a completely new platform designed specifically to combat enemy unmanned combat.

Drones are a very useful tool in any kind of conflict. These machines are fast, agile and hard to break. In the meantime, they can carry different types of weapons themselves, so they are a great threat against which it is difficult to defend themselves. Engineers at the Picatinny Arsenal Laboratories in New Jersey have, however, developed a new combat platform designed to combat these small machines, which has successfully completed its first test.

A working system called EAPS ARDEC was developed under the Technology Objective's Enhanced Area Protection and Survivability (EAPS) program at Army Research, Development and Engineering Center. The combat platform works in a slightly different way than similar systems such as Phalanx or X-RAM, which mount the exploding bullets, or HEL-MD, using a laser beam.

The new system is based on a 50mm Bushmaster rifle mounted at the top of a Heavy Vehicle Mobility Tactical Truck (HEMTT). The battery launches short bursts of 10 unpowered steel missiles in a tantalum and tungsten alloy shell that easily tear drones, mortar shells and rockets. Each such missile can be passively controlled using signals sent from the radar onboard the vehicle. Active control could not be found here, as it was to minimize the amount of electronics in such a missile and thus reduce the cost of their production.